The evolution of South Africa’s regional leadership in Africa : from Mbeki to Zuma – 1999 to 2018

Abstract: With the end of apartheid in 1994, international expectations were that South Africa would undertake a role in regional leadership at both a sub-regional and continental level. Paradoxically, South Africa has pursued roles at the continental level that would constitute it as regional leader in Africa, it has never formally accepted or adopted the role of regional leader in Africa. This qualitative research study enquires into South Africa’s regional leadership and its pivotal role in Africa. Through an examination of the presidencies of Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, as well as former president Nelson Mandela to a lesser extent, the study has managed to describe the evolution of South Africa's foreign policy. Thus, the problem statement and rationale of this research study will be hinged on the evolution of South Africa’s regional leadership from a multilateral to a unilateral approach towards continental leadership in Africa. The main research question is: why has South Africa failed to live up to the promise of a continental leader? Regardless of Pretoria’s seeming optimism towards regional leadership in Africa, Pretoria’s capacity to realise its leadership role in Africa is greatly undercut by a host of factors. Some of these factors include South Africa’s shift from multilateralism to unilateralism, recurrence of xenophobic attacks on African migrants, fear of hegemonic and bullying attitude and South Africa’s leadership inconstancies in Africa. For an easy conceptualisation of the regional leadership narrative, a constructivist approach was followed, with the use of positioning theory. A theory that emphasises the role of storylines and narratives. The concepts of leader initiated leadership and follower-initiated leadership were also discussed. The main concepts from the theoretical framework are willingness, acceptance and capacity. An interesting finding is that South Africa’s willingness to be a regional leader is more pronounced outside of Africa. The study pointed out some suggestions for further study of this topic. They are some gaps that were identified in the literature review in Chapter 2, which are regarded as indispensable in this research study and they may contribute to the development of the body of literature. However, the debate is whether South Africa should make a U-turn to Mbeki’s multilateral approach or it should continue with Zuma's unilateral approach. Given the misgivings and misfiring that was demonstrated in Zuma's unilateral approach, this research study recommends a U-turn from Zuma's unilateral approach to Mbeki's multilateral and collective leadership in Africa.M.A